Speaker 1: Right now, it's time for our way Black History Fact.
Speaker 1: In today's way Black History Fact is sponsored by Major Threads.
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Speaker 1: going to talk about the other ways white slavers obtained
Speaker 1: African slaves. I'm going to share a bit from Liverpool
Speaker 1: Museums dot org dot UK. Normally this is something we
Speaker 1: use from United States based stuff, but you know, we're
Speaker 1: not comfortable with our own history. So and the second
Speaker 1: part of the show, of course, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about other ways that America happened upon slaves. Anyway, the
Speaker 1: peoples of West Africa had a rich and varied history
Speaker 1: and culture long before European slavers arrived. They had a
Speaker 1: wide variety of political arrangements, including kingdoms, city states, and
Speaker 1: other organizations, each with their own languages and culture. The
Speaker 1: Empire of Songhai and the kingdoms of Mali, Beanin and
Speaker 1: Congo were large and powerful, with monarchs having complex political
Speaker 1: structures governing hundreds of thousands of subjects and other areas.
Speaker 1: Political systems were smaller and weaker, relying on agreements between
Speaker 1: people at village level, as in the sixteenth century War
Speaker 1: torn Europe, the balance of power between political states and
Speaker 1: groups was constantly changing. Art learning and technology flourished, and
Speaker 1: Africans were especially skilled in subjects like medicine, mathematics, and astronomy,
Speaker 1: as well as domestic goods. They made fine luxury items
Speaker 1: in bronze, ivory, gold, and terra cotta for both local
Speaker 1: use and trade. West Africans had traded with Europeans through
Speaker 1: merchants in North Africa for centuries. The first traders to
Speaker 1: sail down the West African coast were the Portuguese in
Speaker 1: the fifteenth century. Later the Dutch, British, French, and Scandinavians followed.
Speaker 1: They were mainly interested in precious items such as gold, ivory,
Speaker 1: and spices, particularly pepper. From the first contract's, European traders
Speaker 1: kidnapped and brought Africans for sale in Europe. However, it
Speaker 1: was not until the seventeenth century, when plantation owners wanted
Speaker 1: more and more slaves to satisfy the increasing demand for
Speaker 1: sugar in Europe, that transatlantic slaving became the dominant trade.
Speaker 1: European traders captured some Africans in raids along the coast,
Speaker 1: but bought most of them from the local African or
Speaker 1: African European dealers. These dealers had a sophisticated network of
Speaker 1: trading alliances, collecting groups of people together for trade. Most
Speaker 1: of the Africans who were captured were enslaves, sorry were
Speaker 1: captured in battles or were kidnapped, though some were sold
Speaker 1: into slavery for debt and its punishment. The captives were
Speaker 1: marched to the coast often and during long journeys of
Speaker 1: weeks or even months, shackled to one another. At the coast,
Speaker 1: they were imprisoned in large stone forts built by European
Speaker 1: trading companies or in smaller wooden compounds. All right, now,
Speaker 1: I'm going to share a bit from the New York
Speaker 1: Times magazine discussing piracy is not all slaves were bought. Okay.
Speaker 1: Sometime in sixteen nineteen, a Portuguese slave ship, the Sao
Speaker 1: Jowl Bautista, traveled across the Atlantic Ocean with a hole
Speaker 1: filled with human cargo, captive Africans from Angola in southwestern Africa,
Speaker 1: the men, women and children, most likely from the kingdoms
Speaker 1: of Nyongo and Congo, and the horrific journey bound for
Speaker 1: a life of enslavement in Mexico. Almost half the captives
Speaker 1: had died by the time the ship was seized by
Speaker 1: two English pirate ships. The remaining Africans were taken to
Speaker 1: Point Comfort, a point near Jamestown, the capital of the
Speaker 1: English Colony of Virginia, which the Virginia Company of London
Speaker 1: had established twelve years earlier. The colonist John Rolfe wrote
Speaker 1: to Sir Edwin Sandy's of the Virginia Company that in
Speaker 1: August sixteen nineteen a dutch Man of war had arrived
Speaker 1: in the colony and brought not anything but twenty and
Speaker 1: an odd negros, which the governor and Cape merchant bought
Speaker 1: for virtuals. The Africans were most likely put to work
Speaker 1: in tobacco fields that had recently been established in the area.
Speaker 1: So for folks that are not able to stick around
Speaker 1: for the second part of the show, you know, we
Speaker 1: just want you to know that not all slaves were
Speaker 1: bought and sold by Africans into slavery, although there is
Speaker 1: a whole conversation that we have had and will continue
Speaker 1: to have about that many slaves work indeed kidnapped from
Speaker 1: Africa using piracy and other means.